Stjórn

Stjórn (Icelandic: [stjou(r)tn̥]) is the name given to a collection of Old Norse translations of Old Testament historical material dating from the 14th century, which together cover Jewish history from Genesis through to II Kings.

Rather, it consists of three separate works which vary in date and context, labelled Stjórn I, II and III by scholar I.J.

[2] Stjórn I covers Genesis to Exodus 18 with much additional material from Peter Comestor and Vincent Beauvais.

[3] Stjórn II completes the Pentateuch; it is based closely on the text of the Vulgate but is significantly abbreviated.

[4] Stjórn III treats Joshua to the Exile with some abbreviation and expansion and uses both the Vulgate and Comestor's Historia scholastica as the source of its translation.

[7] In a similar vein Jónsson (1923) considered it possible that it was a translation of liber regnum, and thus referring to the books of the Kings in the Vulgate.

[13] The preface to Stjórn records that king Hákon Magnússon of Norway commissioned a compilation of Biblical material to be read aloud for the benefit of those at his court who could not understand Latin.

[15] The compiler states that he makes use of extra-Biblical texts, such as Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica and Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum historiale.

[16] A similar, possible sighting of ‘Stjórn’ comes from c. 1580 when Peder Claussøn Friis, vicar of Audnedal in Norway reports in his Om Iisland that a “well-born Norwegian man, named Erik Brockenhus” had seen an illuminated manuscript containing the Bible in Icelandic, in “around 1567”.

[17] The first person to inform the European public of Stjórn was Danish bishop Ludvig Harboe in his 1746 Kurze Nachricht von der Isländischen Bibel-Historie.

[18] The first edited publication was by Unger in 1862 as Stjorn: Gammelnorsk Bibelhistorie; he attempted to provide a text as close to that used by the original compiler as possible.

[19] Stjórn I covers the Pentateuch material from Genesis to Exodus 18[10] and is considered by Kirby to be the youngest of the three sections.

[15] It is not a simple translation of the relevant Biblical texts, but rather a compilation based on the Bible which is augmented with information from various sources, principally from Vincent of Beauvis and Comestor's Historica scholastica.

[20] The latter is mainly derived from Vincent of Beavis, including a treatise on geography, tales of the legendary love affairs of Joseph and Moses.